On the cultural transmission of preferences for social status
On the cultural transmission of preferences for social status
We study the formation of preferences for ‘social status' as the result of intergenerational transmission of cultural traits. We characterize the behavior of parents with preferences for status in terms of socialization of their children to this particular cultural trait. We show that degenerate distributions of the population (whereby agents have either all status preferences or all non-status preferences) are dynamically unstable. Moreover, under some conditions, there exists a unique stationary distribution which is non-degenerate (in which both status and non-status preferences co-exist in the population), and this distribution is locally stable. Finally, we study the dependence of the stable stationary distribution of status preferences on institutional, technological and policy parameters which affect agents' economic conditions.
75-97
Verdier, T.
317d5545-1ac7-40c7-a632-eefe1944590a
Bisin, A.
ac19e42b-e8fc-4fcb-8ed1-dec9bc467278
1998
Verdier, T.
317d5545-1ac7-40c7-a632-eefe1944590a
Bisin, A.
ac19e42b-e8fc-4fcb-8ed1-dec9bc467278
Verdier, T. and Bisin, A.
(1998)
On the cultural transmission of preferences for social status.
Journal of Public Economics, 70 (1), .
(doi:10.1016/S0047-2727(98)00061-9).
Abstract
We study the formation of preferences for ‘social status' as the result of intergenerational transmission of cultural traits. We characterize the behavior of parents with preferences for status in terms of socialization of their children to this particular cultural trait. We show that degenerate distributions of the population (whereby agents have either all status preferences or all non-status preferences) are dynamically unstable. Moreover, under some conditions, there exists a unique stationary distribution which is non-degenerate (in which both status and non-status preferences co-exist in the population), and this distribution is locally stable. Finally, we study the dependence of the stable stationary distribution of status preferences on institutional, technological and policy parameters which affect agents' economic conditions.
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Published date: 1998
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Local EPrints ID: 33460
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/33460
PURE UUID: 194177b8-a4d2-481b-bdee-758c619a3e37
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Date deposited: 18 May 2006
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 07:44
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Author:
T. Verdier
Author:
A. Bisin
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